Little White Boy

Contrary to what he might like you to believe, D.O.G. is thriving here. As he moves into his golden years (he’s 16 now) he seems to be appreciating the sun and the shade in our compound while at the same time complaining about everything for attention, his usual modus operandi. He goes on little walks looking for mice (of which he’s eaten many and at least one lizard which he promptly threw back up). He has his spots in the bushes where he can sleep in the shade or the sun without worrying about being disturbed by anyone. And he has us to answer to his every need and to watch over him in case any stray cats or dogs threaten his way of life. He’s looking thinner than he ever has I assume from the exercise. He’s still an endless source of entertainment for Amber and I and now for our new friends here. D.O.G. must have scored high on the karma spectrum in his last life.

The first time D.O.G. went outside in our new home a large group of small birds landed on the fence nearby to check him out. It was as if they had never seen a cat before. I had yet to see a cat in Uganda too so I wondered what they were saying as the birds chirped up a storm and D.O.G. scowled back at them. Many of our Ugandan friends, upon meeting D.O.G., have been shocked at how big he is so I imagine those birds were maybe thinking the same. So D.O.G. is sitting outside in the fresh air for the first time in a long, long time, smelling the air and feeling the sunlight when someone walked by. You’d think he had never seen a black man before because he sunk to the ground and crawled back inside. Is our innocent little cat prejudiced? He’s having a hard time feeling comfortable with Ugandans. It doesn’t help that many of our Ugandan friends don’t know how to pet a cat properly. Our cleaning lady, while perfectly comfortable with him now, had a long period of getting used to an animal as big as D.O.G. lounging around the house. If it were a goat or a chicken I think they wouldn’t think twice but D.O.G. is a cat. Maybe they think of him as a small leopard. Maybe D.O.G. would like to be thought of as a small leopard.

Early one morning, the sun just a hint on the horizon, I woke up to something big and black flying around our bedroom. Recently our friend Danny and I spent 45 minutes trying to get a bat out of one of our neighbors’ apartment so it seemed it was our turn. D.O.G. was already on the case, following it around the room on the floor. Uh oh, I better keep him away from that so I got up and the thing flew into the other room with me and D.O.G. in pursuit. I didn’t really know what to do so for some reason I grabbed a towel. I could tell from D.O.G. that it had flown into the bookcase and was hanging out about 2 shelves down. What do I do? I moved to the other side of the room and crouched down to get a look. Just as I was kneeling down it flew out straight at me. I threw the towel over it. It sank to the ground and there was no movement, just me and the cat staring at a towel for a moment. Then I picked it up slowly. It wasn’t a bat it was a giant black butterfly. D.O.G. tried to bite it and took a piece if the wing off as it flew off somewhere. He also got a face full of black powder. I felt awful for traumatizing a butterfly. Traumatizing a bat is acceptable for some reason but a beautiful butterfly is kinda sacred, no? It survived our attack only for a few hours. Later that day I found it’s body on the floor.

Many of you know, D.O.G. makes friends pretty fast. I’ve pulled him out or and seen him run out of nearly every apartment in the row. If he sees an open door he takes it as an invitation to come in and have a look around. Some people love it when a cat unexpectedly rubs up against their leg, some people don’t. I think a lot of people don’t think of cats as pets. I’ve gotten the impression from many people that cats are dirty. Understandable when you get a look at a stray cat around here, and anywhere for that matter. This has led to some startling reactions when we tell them that he sleeps in our bed. We’ve had some puzzling expressions when we explain to them that D.O.G. doesn’t pee outside, he pees in this little tub where we put newspaper we’ve cut into little strips for him to pee on. “What does he eat?” you ask. Well, his prescription food is not sold in stores here so we had to carry over for him a YEARS SUPPLY! The lengths we go to please our little guy are not the practice of many folks, let alone many Ugandan folks. But after 16 years of taking care of what may in the end be the worlds’ most expensive cat, it’s just what you do. here's D.O.G. napping in his favorite mint patch just outside our place. Now that's inner peace.

The Leopard

2 hours drive northwest of Mbarara, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and wedged between 2 mountain ranges is one of the most beautiful national parks I’ve ever seen. True, national parks are always in unique and beautiful places, so I guess it’s extraordinary-ness is normal. I don’t know why, but I always feel, when beginning a blog entry, that I need to make things sound extraordinary and amazing, so that you, the reader will be gripped by my story, riding the edge of “wow” and “I don’t believe you, Dean. That’s incredible!” I always tell the truth, though, and exaggerate only when necessary, which in a land of extremes is never. But being in Uganda and having so many new and different experiences, almost every day, does provide me with plenty of great stories to tell. That being said let me preclude this story with “WOW!! THAT IS EXTRAORDINARY” and continue.

Queen Elizabeth National Park is situated in the west arm of the Albertine Rift Valley. This valley is formed from 2 plates of the African continent ripping apart. The north plate is pushing northward into the Middle East and the Mediterranean and will eventually build a mountain range somewhere in Saudi Arabia. The south plate is going, well south I think. Also known as the Great Rift Valley, it and its surrounding mountains are home to the Nile River and many of its tributaries. You get the idea. It’s big. The park vegetation is diverse. There are many lakes that support fish and wetland plants and trees. There is jungle so thick you can’t see more than a couple of feet into. And there is vast, vast, vast arid grassland just like you see on National Geographic. The valley is full of big animals and there are lots of roads to drive on for viewing them, which we did, Amber and I with our friend Cissi visiting from London. It was Easter weekend and all the lodging in the park was booked full so our plan was to spend the day in the park, have dinner at the fancy lodge, and then drive to Kasese just outside the park for the night. We didn’t know this would be a problem. No one told us you’re not allowed to drive on the park roads at night. Sure, it makes perfect sense now that we have driven on the park road at night. All those big animals come out at night. And it gets really dark in Queen Elizabeth. You don’t see them until you are very close.

Ok, Ok, back up a little. Let me tell you about the beautiful day before I get into the exciting night. We woke up at 6:30 a.m., still dark, full moon reflecting on a smooth black lake, and ate breakfast at our favorite place, Jacana Safari Lodge. You have to get an early start if want to see any lions as they go to bed early in the day. Also, the light is best for photographs when the sun is low in the sky. And that day was gorgeous. Within the first few hundred meters of our game drive we were taking photos of a huge herd of Ugandan Kob eating grass still wet with morning dew and with a full view of the Rwenzori mountains in the background. That alone was worth getting up early for but the drive continued to be beautiful and cameras were firing at will as we watched herds of waterbuck, buffalo, exotic birds, and even a lone hippo grazing out of the water in full sun. Hey hippo, are you so hungry, hungry you don’t care about getting sunburnt. (Hippos generally stay in the water all day to keep cool and to keep from getting sunburnt and then go out at night to graze. FYI) We had lunch at the lodge and a few beers and then were back out for a boat ride in the Kazinga Channel and more animal viewing just before sunset. The Kazinga Channel connects 2 huge lakes, George and Edward, and is a great place to see animals interact as they bathe, drink, and keep cool on the lakeshore. Elephants clearly are the king of the jungle. Everyone moves out of their way as they stroll about getting wet and eating trees. Destroying trees actually. There are crocodiles strewn about the shore with their mouths open to attract bugs. The bugs, attracted to the saliva, will land in the crocs’ mouth and when there is enough to be bothered with the croc shuts it’s trap and down the gullet they go. We pass a sand bar with every square inch taken up by some bird drying their feathers and beaks off in the breeze coming off Lake Edward. I’m planning a blog entry entirely on birds so I’ll be going into this more then. There’s a fishing village on the channel. People living in harmony with the animals you think? Maybe but I met someone who works at the hospital nearby and she has seen many fishermen come in with injuries from hippos who get annoyed and decide to tip their boat and try to crush them. Hippos have a reputation of unfriendly behavior and they could snap you in half as easy as you can snap your fingers if they feel like it. The sun is going down and it’s coming up on time for dinner so we head back to the lodge for that and then it’s off to bed in Kasese.

It’s 9:30 p.m. and we’re at the gate to leave the park. The ranger, not the first one we’ve talked to, is the first one to tell us that it’s illegal to drive in the park after dark. He’s telling us we can’t leave. But the lodge is full, there’s no place for us to stay, we have to leave. Amber gets out of the car and tries to reason with him. The ranger radios someone and they discuss what to do. It took a fair amount of convincing on Amber’s part but the ranger eventually concedes, not without instilling some fear in us. He explains that most of the animals are nocturnal and to drive very slow to avoid hitting one. He also gives us his personal cell phone number with instructions to call immediately if we run into any trouble. It’s about 16km on a dirt road to the park gate and the tarmac highway. Almost immediately we are scaring away birds that were warming themselves in the road so I’m going pretty slow. We come around a corner and about 20 feet in front is something big squatting at the edge of the road. It’s head turns halfway towards us and we get a profile. It’s a big cat! It’s spraying or peeing on a bush at the edge of the road and doesn’t stop what it’s doing for us. We wait a few seconds while the cat finishes and starts to move. I inch a little closer and we finally get a look at the markings. It’s a leopard and it’s at least as big as me but maybe a little bigger, made entirely of muscle and teeth, and not afraid. The cat steps calmly off the road and gives us the death stare, its mouth hanging open as we crawl past. Yes the windows were rolled up as soon as we saw it. Oh, My, God! That got the adrenaline flowing. I pick up some speed and come to a hook in the road. On the inside corner of the curve stands a bush about 8 feet tall. Above the bush, as we round the corner, I see a big black shape about 12 feet tall moving across the road. It’s an elephant and it’s running to get out of our way! It gives out a deep loud squeal as we peel past and get a close view of its rear end. Being that close to a running elephant, even from inside a car, you feel every step in your chest. Ok, we need to get off this road. It really isn’t safe at all. But driving faster would be the wrong thing to do. So I set the pace at about 20km per hour as the fastest we can safely go and we continue. We catch the moonlight shining off the backs of 2 hippos grazing just off the road. Keep going Dean, there’s a lot of eyes glowing out there. We do eventually reach the gate, get on the highway and make it to the hotel with time to spare for a beer to calm the nerves. The only regret I have is there aren’t any pictures of the leopard. I don’t think a camera flash would’ve helped our situation and we would’ve had to have the windows down to take a photo. That was not going to happen.

The rest of Cissis’ visit has been filled, leisurely of course, with showing her around Mbarara. We bought produce in the market, she bought some African fabrics to make some pillows as well as some gifts for her friends. She took a few boda boda rides which are a must for anyone visiting Uganda. We took a special (that’s a what you call a cab here) down to the gas station to put her on a bus to Kampala. Hejdo Cissi until next time. As for me I’m left feeling lucky for what I’ve seen and done and also feeling like I have a lot more to see and do. One thing I’d like to get better at here is haggling. I just learned that a pineapple should cost 800 Ush. I’ve been paying 1500 Ush and feeling like I’m getting a deal. Mzungu Prices! So unfair. The exchange rate for US dollars right now is 2100 Ush to the dollar. So that’s only a difference of about 30 cents but every cent counts when you don’t have an income.

Zanzibar

Monday March 16th 2009

Zanzibar is where Arabia melds with Africa. This small archipelago off the coast of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean is paradise for anyone interested in swimming, snorkeling, diving, eating, history, shopping, you name it. Amber and I, along with our friends from Seattle Sarah, Steve, and Todd landed in the hot, sweaty night after a long but easy plane ride from Entebbe to Nairobi to here. After riding on the cramped, dusty buses of Uganda the economy class seats on Kenyan Air felt like first class.
After checking in to our hotel in Stonetown, the capital of Zanzibar, we took a walk to a beachside plaza to check out the seafood market. Every night vendors setup tables, oil lamps, and barbecues in this park and cook up skewers of fresh seafood. Tuna, marlin, lobster, calamari, mussles, snails, clams, octopus, you can have a giant crab claw, plus Indian flatbreads, falafel, vegetables, fresh squeezed sugarcane juice, chocolate covered bananas, heavenly heaven for a seafood lover like me. And cheap too. A lobster skewer will run you about $2 US, even less if you’ve got bargaining skills. At each table the cook has his inventory on display, most of the way cooked but not quite done. They grab plate and place on it the skewers of your choice, then when you’re ready the throw it back on the grill to finish cooking. Some of the vendors have a chili sauce, called pili pili, to brush on if you like. I like. If I lived here I would eat here every night. We sat in the grass amongst the Zanzibar stray cats and looked out at the wooden boats in the harbor and up at the stars in the sky.
The next day we got up early and ate breakfast together, included in most accommodations around these parts, on the rooftop lounge of the hotel. As you look out over Stonetown you’ll see that many hotels have rooftop places to hang out. The streets of Stonetown are extremely narrow and extremely not straight so the breeze doesn’t get down into the depths of it. But up on the roof you can see the ocean and feel the breeze coming off it and the sun heating up the day. It gets frickin’ hot here, by the way. Mid 90’s with a humidity of oh my god. We only plan to spend one day here and this is it so we all wanted to get the most out of it. We booked ourselves on a spice tour for the first part of the day. Zanzibar has built a reputation for its spices. They say that in the old days of the explorers you could smell the cloves long before you could see the island. I felt that it would be interesting but I have to admit I thought it might be a little too touristy for my taste. I was wrong, it was one of the coolest things I’ve done. After a short drive out of town and into the hills we got out for a walk through a spice plantation. They didn’t grow only one spice on this plantation. They grew pretty much every spice you can think of. As we walked the guide would stop a tree or bush and pick the fruit, flower, or leaves, pass it around and ask us to guess which spice it is. We had cinnamon bark straight off the cinnamon tree. Bite down on a fresh clove fruit and your whole mouth will go numb. Ginger, when eaten right out of the ground, is really really hot! Fresh nutmeg will make you feel light headed. All these spices were interspersed with the tasting of fresh fruit. We had the best grapefruit, lychee, orange, and coconut right off the tree. It was sensory overload.
The rest of that day the group split up and Amber and I walked around town to look for souvenier's. Stonetown is a labyrinth of narrow streets full of shops, mosques, hotels, and even workshops. Streets only had to be wide enough to get a hand cart down back then so buildings were put very close together. Getting lost is part of the experience, as is dodging scooters and warding off salesmen. Mostly built when it became the capital of the Omani kingdom in the 1800’s, it was the heart of the Arab slave trade. Many of its citizens became very wealthy. The doors on the houses are notorious for their elaborate display of the wealth of their inhabitants. And now, after over a hundred years of salt air, the town has developed a thick patina of Asian smells, African carvings, Muslim chanting and Swahili ballyhoo. It’s an ancient metropolis at a tropical island pace. They even have a phrase to use much like “hang loose’ in Hawaii is used. It’s “hakuna matata” and it means “no worries”. Amber and I dove into a few deep curio shops, bought some postcards, and just explored for a few hours before meeting up with our friends at a bar called Mercury’s which is named after the famous Zanzibar born singer Freddy.
After breakfast the next day I had a scooter driving lesson planned. We wanted to go to the other side of the island, mostly beach, and we thought scooter would be the best way to go. Since I don’t have an international driving license I had to pay for a temporary permit (about $7 US). After 20 minutes of starting, shifting gears, coming to a complete stop and then starting again, the instructor felt comfortable enough to let us go and our friends followed in a rented car. As we zipped across the island we were wafted by the smells of ocean and spices. What a way to go! It took a little over an hour to get to our little bungalow on a length of powder white beach stretching all the way up the northeast side of the island. We spent the next few days lounging in the shade, swimming in the pool, snorkeling around the atoll nearby, drinking blue and green cocktails at happy hour, and eating in luxury.
It’s Saturday now and time for our friends to head home. Amber and I have a couple more days to explore. After coffee on the beach watching the sunrise we ate breakfast and took one last dip in the pool before parting ways, until next time. We hopped on the scooter, me in the drivers seat backpack on my front, Amber on the back with a backpack on her back. We scooted straight down the middle of the island to Unguja Ukuu (South Zanzibar). We were stopped twice by the police to check our license but, contrary to much warning about it, never were pressured to pay a bribe. The police are not paid very well and so many have resorted to using their authority to extort innocent passersby. This is the reputation they have built anyway and while they didn’t come across to me as being friendly, I never felt like I was in a situation I didn’t want to be in. I have no problem proving to the authorities that I’m following their rules. I may need their help sometime.
2 hours later we found ourselves at Menai Bay Beach Resort, among huge baobab trees, in another piece of tropical wonderland overlooking the Menai Bay Nature Preserve. It’s pretty quiet on this side of the island. Upon signing the guest book we learned that we’re their first visitors in a month. Luckily we had called ahead and they were ready and willing to take us in. After settling in and washing off the road, scootering in paradise is dirty work you know, we walked down the beach to the only other business establishment in the area, a little mom and pop Thai restaurant. Run by an older couple, she’s from Thailand he’s from Italy, this little restaurant has it all figured out. Great spot, great food, great service. “We’ll be back for dinner, thanks”.
We got back on the scooter and went about 10km down the road to the Jozani National Park for a guided nature walk. For only $4 US + tip for the guide you can stroll through some of the strangest forest you’ve ever seen. The first part of our three part walk was through thick mahogany and palm trees. With the water table just 2 ½ feet below ground the trees don’t have much to grab on to and so, after reaching about 100 feet tall, they simply fall over. Some trees have adopted a strategy of grabbing on to other trees for support. These are called strangler trees and they end up killing the other tree and they both fall over together. Add to this a bizarre little native, the freshwater crab. What? We’re at least 5km from the ocean and there’s not a lake in sight. But with the water table so close these crabs have no problem getting the water they need by burrowing down to it.
Next we crossed the road into an almond grove that is home to a large colony of red colobus monkeys. These cute little guys have gotten quite used to people staring at them so they’ll get very close to you as they snack on fresh almond leaves. Watching them jump from limb to limb and swing from tree to tree will make you wish you were a monkey too. And they get so close you want to reach out a grab one for a hug if it weren’t for the many diseases you can get from simply touching a monkey. My folks always told me not to touch the monkeys. Sorry.
Next part of the walk was on a boardwalk through a mangrove forest. A mangrove forest is basically a swamp where trees are growing, in this particular forest, in brackish water. Brackish water is half salt, half fresh water. This mangrove happens to be a tidal flat so, although it was low tide when we walked through, at high tide the boardwalk is often underwater.

(Author’s note: I’m struggling here to describe every strange detail when a few photos would save a lot of explaining. I’m uploading this entry on a friends high quality connection instead of my usual slow one. Hopefully this means I’ll get a few photos up.)

Just two days left here and feeling like we’ve grabbed a huge bite out of the place. We woke up feeling great and looking forward to the beaches of the southeast coast. It’s not surprising then, in hindsight, that something unexpected should happen. Well, we knew it could happen but were wishing it wouldn’t. About 4km before we reached the nearest petrol station we ran out of gas. It was 10 a.m. and the sun was just getting cooking. It was time to get off and push. I have to say, if I’m going to run out of gas at a place of my choosing it would be on Zanzibar at anytime of day. Everyone we passed wanted to know what the problem was and if they could help. Unfortunately there’s only one solution to no gas. We soaked ourselves in sweat doing it but we did get gas and dried ourselves off doing 40km per hour to the next beach. Just part of the adventure.

So that was Zanzibar. Back at the compound in Mbarara today the first lady, Janet Museveni is visiting to give us a speech. I think I saw her convoy go by a little while ago and now the place is crawling with soldiers. Maybe I’ll go try to look over the fence and get a peek. Talk at you later!